Turn-Taking

Turn-taking is a type of organization in conversation and discourse where participants speak one at a time in alternating turns. In practice, it involves processes for constructing contributions, responding to previous comments, and transitioning to a different speaker, using a variety of linguistic and non-linguistic cues.

While the structure is generally universal, turn-taking conventions vary by culture and community. Conventions vary in many ways, such as how turns are distributed, how transitions are signaled, or how much overlapping is acceptable.

In many contexts, conversation turns are a valuable means to participate in social life and have been subject to competition. It is often thought that turn-taking strategies differ by gender; consequently, turn-taking has been a topic of intense examination in gender studies. While early studies supported gendered stereotypes, such as men interrupting more than women and women talking more than men, recent research has found mixed evidence of gender-specific conversational strategies, and few overarching patterns have emerged.

In conversation analysis, turn-taking organization describes the sets of practices speakers use to construct and allocate turns. The organization of turn-taking was first explored as a part of conversation analysis by Harvey Sacks with Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson in the late 1960s/early 1970s, and their model is still generally accepted in the field.

Turn-taking structure within a conversation has three components:

This order of steps serves to maintain two important elements of conversation: one person speaking at a time and minimized space between when one person stops talking and another begins. Because the system is not optimized for fairness or efficiency, and because turn-taking is not reliant on a set number or type of participants, there are many variations in how turn-taking occurs.

Another cue associated with turn-taking is that of timing. Within turn-taking, timing may cue the hearer to know that they have a turn to speak or make an utterance. Due to the very nature of turn-taking and that it is dependent on the context, timing varies within a turn and may be subjective within the conversation. Vocal patterns, such as pitch, specific to the individual also cue the hearer to know how the timing will play out in turn-taking.

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